slack

name	slack
description	Look up Slack users and channels by name, open DMs, read channel history, and search messages. Use when you need to resolve a name to an ID (e.g. someone asks you to "mention Gavin" and you need `<@U…>`), find a channel, or retrieve context from other Slack conversations.

Slack

The enso slack CLI is the single entry point for anything Slack-related. It's always available — no token management on your side.

Name ↔ ID lookups

Whenever someone says "mention Gavin" or "post to #daily", resolve the name to an ID before composing the message:

enso slack lookup-user "gavin"           # by name / real_name / display / email
enso slack lookup-channel "daily"        # by name or channel ID
enso slack whois U0AETSSDDEF             # reverse: ID → user record

• Output is one line per match: <id> <real_name> (@handle) <email> [tags]
• Multiple matches means the name was ambiguous — ask the human to clarify before picking.
• The CLI caches results locally and refreshes automatically on a miss, so these calls are effectively free after the first lookup.

Using the IDs in messages

Once you have an ID, embed it in your Slack message using Slack mention syntax:

• User mention: <@U0AETSSDDEF>
• Channel reference: <#C0AEWRPJ9LM|daily>

Slack renders these as clickable mentions/links automatically.

Opening a DM

To send someone a direct message, you need the DM channel ID (D…), not their user ID:

enso slack open-dm U0AETSSDDEF           # or by name: open-dm "gavin"
# → prints D0AFV5ANEGY

Feed that channel ID to enso message send --to <D…> or enso message attach --to <D…>.

Listing

enso slack list users                    # every cached user
enso slack list channels                 # every cached channel
enso slack refresh                       # force-refresh both
enso slack refresh --users               # or just one

If the cache is empty the list commands refresh automatically.

Message search & history

No cache here — these hit the API live each time:

enso slack search "deploy failed"        # search.messages
enso slack search "from:@gavin report"
enso slack history C0AEWRPJ9LM --count 30
enso slack thread C0AEWRPJ9LM 1706789234.123456

enso slack search uses the bot token with the search:read.public scope the bundled app manifest grants — it searches public channels only. On apps created before that scope was added, it errors with missing_scope/not_allowed_token_type until the app is updated from the current manifest and reinstalled. history and thread work with any standard bot token.

Notes

• All commands use the bot token from ~/.enso/config.json automatically.
• Channel IDs start with C (public), G (private group), D (DM).
• User IDs start with U (regular) or W (Enterprise Grid).
• The cache lives at ~/.enso/cache/slack.json and is kept fresh both by these CLI commands and by real-time Slack events when the bot is running.